Whoops! In a strange turn of events, the next installment in one of Microsoft's most beloved (and lucrative) video gaming franchises, Halo, has been leaked.

That's the full version of Halo: Reach we're talking about, a game which pulled more than 2.7 million players during its two-week beta in early May. While the alleged thieves come from a forum of modders known as GameTuts, Microsoft—in many ways—shares a little bit of the leak's blame.

The game might have a release date of September 14, but Microsoft decided to seed Halo: Reach over its Xbox Live service for reviewers to download—sticking the full game with a seemingly impossibly price tag of 9999 Microsoft points, or around $1,250 in real-world cash. The industrious modders over at GameTuts somehow found their way past the special download code one would have to type in to access and download the game and, as you might expect, they grabbed themselves a copy.

"The GameTuts staff have all participated in the work of "Halo: Reach". The main members of our team, Matty and Cthulhu have worked endless hours, pushing the barriers to allow our golden faces play "Halo: Reach," reads a now-deleted post on the GameTuts forums.

"The intelligent mind of our beloved Admin, Matty worked endlessly to acquire this game, the deed was done. The moderator of GameTuts, Cthulhu is now the man of his word to work on the game file and allow our members see 'Halo: Reach' before its release."

According to the post, GameTuts users have no intentions to release their acquisition before the game's official release date—allegedly, the acquired code has been signed by Microsoft and thus runs without issue on an unmodified Xbox 360 console.

Microsoft is currently investigating the "security exploit" and, if past reactions are any indication, will undoubtedly ban the heck out of any console caught running the game prior to September 14.

At least, that's what the company did in response to the leak of Halo 3 in 2007, which occurred some two-months before the game's official release. Users caught playing the game were issued a 7,992-year ban from Xbox Live—as close to "bricking" a console as Microsoft can get.

While Halo:Reach developer Bungie has yet to comment on the leak, forum moderator Qbis98 has reiterated the official forum stance toward leaked information: a permanent ban for those who, "DISCUSS, REQUEST, or LINK TO information or campaign spoilers from illegitimately obtained sources -- including illegitimately obtained copies of Halo: Reach -- before the game is officially released."

Of course, that hasn't stopped those with access to Halo:Reach from posting videos of the game's new multiplayer maps and single-player campaign to Youtube, amongst other places.